Reunion

He parked the car in the driveway of a nondescript house in the center of nondescript suburbs. As she reached for the door handle, her hand shook. She got out of the car, as gracefully as her weak knees would allow, and watched the convertible top of the car fold in on itself in an insectile motion. Ivanov clicked another button, and the car beeped once as it locked itself up. He pocketed the keys and reached for another set in his pocket.

Her eyes met his. He nodded toward the front door. All of the old instincts and reflexes flooded back into her brain, driving the weakness from her knees. She strode forward confidently to stand beside the door, to wait for his next command. His fingers picked slowly through the collection of keys as he strolled toward the door, an almost-smile on his lips. Eventually, he found the key he wanted, casually dropping the others to hang from the ring as he unlocked the door. She went in once he gestured for her to go first.

It was dark in the entryway, but she walked inside anyway. Three steps past the threshold, she turned, back to the wall, and turned her head sideways, looking for him in the scant light. Her hands were clasped placidly before her.

The front door closed behind him, blocking out all of the light. She could barely discern his silhouette in the darkness. A nod of his head sent her into the kitchen, where he opened the pantry door. Stairs sloped downwards from the back of the empty pantry, and she walked down them without fear. There was nothing more terrifying in the world than the man that followed her.

By the looks of things, he had recreated the New Orleans dungeon, at least in style and floor plan. The floor slanted slightly downward from the walls toward a drain in the center of the concrete floor. There was no octagonal tile down here, only smooth and treated concrete. Heavy steel shackles grew from the concrete walls and hung down like silvery petals. Their chains buried into the walls like creeping ivy. Small steel trays jutted from each wall, several feet from the shackles, just out of reach of whoever would be held captive there. An operating table glinted against the far wall, cleaner no doubt than any sterile table in any operating theater.

Oddly enough, this felt like home.

Nikki walked to the nearest set of shackles, nearly opposite the stairway, and stood, her back to the smooth wall. A smile crawled across his face with all of the warmth of a maggot creeping through a corpse. She shivered. Heat blossomed in her stomach in a way she hadn't felt in nearly four years.
“Take off your jacket.”

Those were the first words he had spoken since the bluffs. His accent was thicker than the snow in any Russian winter, and twice as cold. The heavy leather slid smoothly down her shoulders and she caught the collar of it in her hands. He took it from her and offered her an elastic hair tie. She didn't stop to wonder where he got it from as she slipped it around her wrist. Her hair was piled high on her head, wrapped around itself and secured so that it wouldn't fall across her shoulders or neck. As she tossed her head to check that it was correct, his fingers caught her chin.

He looked into her eyes, then looked deeper. She felt his mind probing within hers in the most clinical of ways. He was searching out the impurities within her before he burned them out. Her hands flexed and curled into fists. She craved the feel of the cold metal around wrists that had already almost healed from the earlier trauma. Deep purple bruises in the shape of his hands circled her wrists, amethyst bracelets custom designed for her and her alone. But they weren't enough. She needed more.

His fingers fell from her jaw and lifted the cuff on the wall to her right, adjusting the length of the chain with a connector. It looked like a regular chain link, but instead of being unbroken, a single hexagonal cylinder spun up or down one side on screw threads. He hooked it through two links of the chain, shortening the length so that her hands would be above her head, at the exact height to leave her feet lightly on the floor, but flat.

“Take off your shoes.” He moved to her other side, close enough to touch, and adjusted the second chain. She removed her boots and set them to the side, beneath the surgical tray to her right. On it sat several items that were so intimately familiar to her that she nearly forgot where she was.
A scalpel shined in the florescent lights, sharper than hunger. Its age was only evident in the slight wear on the grip. The blade was new. Beside that, a glass jar with a wooden lid that held something black, grainy, and faintly glimmering. The black sand was gunpowder. A bottle of ethanol and a clean white rag sat waiting. The rag hung halfway off of the tray, as if waiting for a hand to grab it absently.

Once she was standing barefoot in her proper place, he had fixed the chains to his liking and bound the cuffs of the metal restraints together. His eyes met hers. She slowly raised her hands, wrists together, above her head. Her languid motions were born of the anticipation of ecstasy, not of reluctance. His hands were gentle as they locked the cuffs around her wrists. He stepped back to make sure that she was positioned just as he wanted her. Finding it satisfactory, he moved close to her again and pressed a single, chilled kiss to her forehead.

Every thought in her mind faded away. Every worry, every hope, everything burned away at his chill kiss, leaving her pliant and servile. Her only wish was to serve. Her only purpose was to satisfy his desire, whatever form it happened to take. The warm rush of chemicals flooded her brain as her fix hit her bloodstream.

She was back in the only place she had ever felt at home. The only place she ever felt safe.

The only place she ever felt loved.

There was the smallest click of metal on metal as the scalpel was picked up.
She sighed.

Her mind was blissfully silent.

He began.